Beauty and the Blacksmith(2)

“Good day, Miss Highwood.”

She made it a respectable distance down the lane before stopping to press her hand to her chest. Closing her eyes, she inhaled a deep, steady breath.

Oh, Lord. What a fool she was.

Damn. Aaron felt like an idiot.

No, no. Idiot was too kind a word. Idiots were innocent of their mistakes. Aaron knew better. He was a coarse, mutton-brained lout.

What the devil had he been thinking? He didn’t know what had made him do it. Only that she’d been wearing that china-blue frock with lacy edges—the one that made him want to carry her into a field of wildflowers, lay her down like a picnic blanket, and feast.

Perhaps it was best this way. She wouldn’t come around to tempt him again—that much was certain.

Too much of the day remained, and he was too restless for leisure. Lacking an urgent project, he pulled out some thin iron stock and decided to bang out nails. A smith could never have too many nails.

Again and again, he heated the rod to a glowing yellow, braced it on his anvil, and pounded one end to a tapered point. With an ease born of years of practice, he severed the length in one blow, crushed the flat end to a blunt button, and plunged the finished nail in a waiting bucket of water.

Then he began again.

Several hours of mindless, sweaty pounding later, he had a pile of nails large enough to rebuild the village should a mammoth wave wash it all out to sea. And he still hadn’t driven the feel of her skin from his mind.

So soft. So warm. Scented with dusting powder and her natural sweetness.

Damn his eyes. Damn all his senses.

Aaron banked the fire in the forge. He put all his tools away, washed at the pump, and saddled his mare for a ride into the village. He wasn’t usually a hard-drinking man, but tonight he needed a pint or three.

After tethering his horse on the village green, he made his way through the familiar red-painted door of the Bull and Blossom. He hunkered down on a stool in the nearly empty tavern, stacking his fists on the bar.

“Be right with you, Mr. Dawes,” the serving girl sang out to him from the kitchen.

“Take your time,” he answered.

He had all night. No one was waiting for him. No one.

He lowered his head and banged his brow against the anvil of his stacked fists. Coarse. Mutton-brained. Lout.

“Dawes, you need a woman.”

Aaron’s head whipped up. “What?”

Fosbury, the tavern keeper, plunked a tankard of ale on the counter. “I hate to say it. Unhappy bachelors are better for my profits. But you need a woman.”

“Tonight, a woman is not what I need.” He took a long draught of ale.

“She came around the forge today, didn’t she?”

Aaron lifted the tankard for another sip. “Who did?”

“Miss Highwood.”

Aaron choked on his ale.

“It’s no secret.” Fosbury wiped down the counter. “Ever since she showed up in this village, you’ve had eyes for her. Not surprising. You’re a man in your prime, and she’s the prettiest thing to grace Spindle Cove in some time.”

Aaron scrubbed his face with both hands. Curse him, Fosbury had too many things right.

From the first sight of her, he’d been utterly smitten. He had a weakness for finely wrought things, and by God, Diana Highwood was just so . . . perfect. In any other village, men might sit on these barstools and debate which woman deserved the honor of most comely in town. In this tavern, that debate would begin and end over a single sip of ale. Diana Highwood took the honors, without question. She had the face of an angel. Delicate and beautiful.

But though her fair looks might have caught his eye, other qualities had snared his heart.

It had all started the night they’d spent struggling to save Finn Bright’s life. The youth had lost his foot in an explosion, and he’d been brought to the forge for surgery. Miss Highwood wasn’t a healer or a nurse, but she’d insisted on staying to help. Bringing water, mopping blood, dabbing the sweat of delirium from Finn’s brow.

That was the night Aaron had learned the truth of Diana Highwood. That her delicacy was only skin deep—but the beauty went all the way through.

The longer she lived in this village, the more he found in her to admire. She wasn’t only beautiful; she was brave as well. Then determined, intelligent, charitable. By now, she was some sort of paragon in his mind, and Aaron worried that long after she left, he’d be comparing every woman he ever met to her.

And they’d all fall short.

He stretched his hand, regarding it in the dim light. The pad of his thumb still burned where he’d brushed a lock of hair from her neck. It felt singed, cinder-kissed. He pressed it against the cool tankard, but it still throbbed, hot and achy.

Damn, he was hot and achy everywhere. He’d let this attraction get away from him, and now she was deep under his skin. In his blood, it seemed.

“She’s not for you,” Fosbury said.

“I know it. I know it well.” And if he’d been harboring any other thoughts, her frantic escape today would have driven them out of his head.

“She’s not the only woman in this village.”

“I know that, too. It’s just . . . so long as she’s living here, I can’t seem to take an interest in anyone else.”

Fosbury leaned close over the counter and lowered his voice. “The answer could be right under your nose. You don’t have to look far.”

The tavern keeper tilted his head in the direction of the serving girl, who’d emerged from the kitchen with a rag to wipe the tables clean. She cast a friendly smile in Aaron’s direction, and he returned the greeting with a nod.

When she was out of earshot, Aaron muttered, “You want me to court Pauline Simms?”

“She’d make you a good wife. Hardworking, clever with sums. She’s grown up well, too.” Fosbury rapped the countertop with his knuckles, then drifted away. “Think about it.”

Under the guise of stretching his neck, Aaron had another look at the girl.

He thought about it.

Fosbury was right. Pauline Simms was the sort of woman he ought to set his sights on. She was one of his kind. Working class, the daughter of a farmer. As Fosbury said, she was quick with her hands and her wits. She’d be a help to any man with a trade. Admittedly, she had a few rough edges, but nothing some care and time wouldn’t smooth.

As he watched, she tipped over a decorative plate, muttering, “Bollocks.”

He smiled. But even though they were only four years apart in age, and even though she’d long grown into a woman—a pretty one, at that—Aaron couldn’t look at Pauline Simms without seeing the gap-toothed, freckled girl who’d grown up a year behind his own sister.

That was the problem with a village this small. Every available woman felt like a sister to him. Or maybe it was his own circumstances that had permanently cast him in the big-brother role.

When his father had died ten years ago, slumped over the anvil from a heart attack, it didn’t matter that Aaron was barely seventeen. He’d needed to become the man of the family, and quick. He’d taken over the forge, working hard to support his mother and sisters.

When Spindle Cove became a retreat for well-bred young ladies, some of the other men had groused about the village being overrun . . . but it suited Aaron fine. By then, both his sisters had married, and they and his mother had moved away. So he liked having the visiting young ladies around. He mended their locks and buckles; they purchased the silver and copper trinkets he made in his spare time. It was like having a flock of little sisters to replace the ones he so sorely missed.

Except for Diana Highwood.

He’d never felt brotherly toward her.

He drained his ale. It wasn’t strong enough. “Pauline?”

She looked up from mopping a table clean. “Yes, Mr. Dawes? Anythin’ else you need?”

“Bring me a whiskey, will you?”





CHAPTER 2


As was their habit, all the ladies residing in the Queen’s Ruby rooming house gathered in the parlor after dinner. A roaring fire kept the chill at bay.

Even now, hours after leaving the forge, Diana was still out-of-sorts. The bit of needlework she’d been working on wouldn’t come out right, and she’d lost patience with it.

She’d lost patience with herself.

She’d spent the better part of two years girlishly infatuated with Aaron Dawes, all the while trusting nothing could come of it. He’d mended every scrap of metal she possessed—sometimes two or three times—showing her nothing but neighborly patience.

Until today. Today, he’d shown her something much more.

And she’d panicked and fled. Not even politely, but as if he were an ogre. She was certain he’d been wounded by her hasty retreat.

Now she’d have to avoid him for as long as she remained in the village. How unbearably awkward.